Hoover, Lou Henry

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HOOVER, LOU HENRY

Best known as the wife of Depression-era president Herbert Hoover, Lou Henry Hoover (March 29, 1874–January 7, 1944) was also actively involved in organizations that promoted independence and health for girls and women. Born in Waterloo, Iowa, the elder of two daughters of a banker who encouraged her independence and love of the outdoors, she moved with her family to Whittier, California, and later to Monterey. After completing normal school, she earned a degree in geology at Stanford University, where she met Herbert Hoover. They married in 1899 and immediately sailed for China, where they survived the Boxer Rebellion. Many more journeys took them and their two sons around the world several times in the first decade of the twentieth century, while Herbert prospered as a consulting engineer and financier. An accomplished linguist, Lou Hoover, with assistance from her husband, also translated from Latin and privately published De Re Metallica, a sixteenth-century mining text.

With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, both Hoovers assisted Americans stranded abroad and later headed relief organizations for starving Europeans. Lou Hoover became an effective speaker and fundraiser in the United States. America's declaration of war in 1917 brought the couple to Washington, D.C., he as food administrator and she to engage in civic works, including creating living and eating facilities for the growing number of young women in war agencies. A quiet philanthropist throughout her life, Lou Hoover "lent" college tuition money to young people but did not cash their repayment checks.

When Herbert Hoover became secretary of commerce, Lou embraced the Girl Scouts as an ideal organization to foster education, recreation, and independence of young women. She served the organization as national commissioner, national president from 1922 to 1925, vice president and chairman of the national board of commissioners, and, after she became first lady, honorary president. During the 1920s, she focused on organization and emphasized recruitment and training of leaders, obtaining grants to support these activities. In the 1930s, she was again named national Girl Scout president and she became a more public voice, travelling extensively on Girl Scout business. Meanwhile she was an early supporter of the National Amateur Athletic Federation and served as president of its women's division. She encouraged women to pursue careers as well as marriage and motherhood.

During Herbert Hoover's term as president of the United States from 1929 to 1933, the first lady attended to social obligations and also arranged the first extensive inventory and history of White House furnishings. She was severely criticized for entertaining the wife of the only black member of Congress. She promulgated her husband's voluntary approaches to the Great Depression with women's groups and the Girl Scouts. Hiring her own staff, she became a clearinghouse for relief appeals.

After leaving the White House, Hoover supported the Friends of Music at Stanford, the Salvation Army, and Republican organizations. When her husband crusaded for relief of the "small democracies" at the start of World War II, she again supported his efforts. In all her activities, Lou Henry Hoover lived by two mottoes: "don't forget joy" and "lead from behind."

See Also: HOOVER, HERBERT.